BLU released a new phone a few days back called the BLU Energy XL and they sent me one to take a look at. The XL in the title is there for good reason; everything about this phone is massive. It has a huge 6" HD screen, 64GB of on-board storage, and mammoth 5,020 mAh battery. The only thing that isn't enormous about this behemoth is the price, which is a very reasonable $300.

Sound pretty good on paper, right? Let's see how good it is in practice.

The Good

Screen

The Super AMOLED Panel is beautiful. Bright whites, rich colors, and a perfectly acceptable pixel density (367 DPI) make this the best looking display I've ever seen on a mid-range device. It's nearly as good as the one on the Nexus 6P, which is high praise.

Included items

BLU doesn't skimp on included accessories for the XL. In addition to the charger and cable, BLU also includes a clear case, a screen protector, and headphones. Man, I wish all manufacturers did that!

Storage

64GB on board storage for less than $300? Makes you wonder why Android's top players launch phones with only 32GB of storage for twice the price.

Performance

I'm sure this phone and its off-brand processor gets blown away in benchmarks by current gen super-phones. I, however, couldn't care less. With 3GB RAM and only a 1080p screen, this phone is plenty quick and hasn't slowed down at all after two weeks of use.

The Not So Good

Software

Lollipop on a phone launching halfway through 2016? :/

Absent NFC

I asked my contact at BLU about this and was told that they their research indicates that most people don't use NFC so they have neglected to include it. What?! Come on guys, this is 2016, mobile payments are taking off and more accessories with NFC launch every day. No excuses, this should be a mandatory feature, especially on a phone that wants to compete with the big boys.

No Band 12 or WiFi calling

As a T-Mobile customer, these are both features I now consider mandatory in any mobile device I purchase. Magenta's network is seriously handicapped without access to these two range extending technologies and I miss them when using this device.

Non-standard charging technology

The Energy XL comes equipped with fast charging technology to rapidly fill its massive battery. Unfortunately, the charging technology is non-standard 9V/2A and only works with the included charger. Great, because what we really need are some more proprietary USB Type-C rapid charging technologies...

Hardware and Build Quality

Energy XL in front, Nexus 6P behind.

Since I use a Nexus 6P as my daily driver and it's another huge Android device I've decided to use it as a comparison for this article. It should help you gauge the size of the Energy XL.

This is a big ol' slab of a phone. With a 6 inch screen and capacitive buttons I expected it to be a lot larger than the Nexus 6P. Surprisingly, it is only a hair taller and a couple of millimeters wider. In hand, it feels very similar to the 6P, thanks to a nearly identical metal band that encompasses the phone, complete with chamfered edges. It's nearly 30 grams heavier than the Nexus, but the weight is evenly distributed and the increased heft is hardly perceptible.

The glass on the phone's face is slightly rounded, sloping down to the edges of the device. While the screen is 'just' a 1080p panel, it looks lovely to my eyes. The colors are vibrant and punchy, and, as an AMOLED device, blacks are luxuriously dark. From more than 6 inches away it looks every bit as good as the screen in the Nexus 6P, which shouldn't be surprising since both of the panels are sourced from Samsung.

White balance and color balance are almost identical between the two phones.

The screen gets plenty bright to be read outdoors and dims super low, which is perfect for late night reading. It's only .3 inches larger than the panel on the 6P, but with the buttons moved off the screen to the bezel, it feels a lot larger than that. All told, this is a fantastic display, especially on a $300 device.

Below the screen a home button doubles as a fingerprint reader, which, by the way, is very fast and accurate. Capacitive buttons sit at either side of the home button, with the back button on the right. That took a little getting used to after 3 years with a Sony or Nexus device, but will feel normal to anyone used to a Samsung phone.

While the arrangement of the buttons may be the same as Samsung's phones, they are not back-lit like the Galaxy series, which makes it impossible to see them in low light. That, combined with the backwards placement, had me hitting the wrong button a lot my first week with the phone. Though, eventually, I did get used to it.

The back of the phone is an expanse of aluminum with plastic caps at the top and bottom which house sensors and antennas. A single loudspeaker lies near the bottom and the very slightly protruding camera module is at the top. The speaker is not as loud as the dual front facing speakers found on the 6P and is pretty tinny, with almost no bass presence.

The plastic pieces at the top and bottom are more copper-colored than the gold back plate. I think it looks nice.

The USB Type-C port and headphone jack are found at the bottom of the device – the top is entirely bare. The dual SIM slot near the top on the left side of the phone, the Micro SD card tray is similarly placed on the right. The volume rocker and power button are located about a little more than halfway up the right side of the device. They are raised just enough to be distinguishable and have nice clicky feedback.

Software

The BLU Energy XL runs a heavily modified version of Android Lollipop. Yup, Lollipop, when Nougat is just a couple of months away from launching. The rep at BLU told me that the XL will be getting Marshmallow by the end of the year, but it's a let-down to see a brand new phone launching with year-old software.

Cam covered BLU's latest software in-depth in his article about the BLU Vivo XL so instead of rewriting his already thorough review, I'm just going to point out a few things I like about BLU's take on Android and a few things I think are kinda weird. Let's start with the odd.

Strange things.

No app drawer: Yup, all the apps are spewed across your homescreens, no app drawer to be found. I can't tell you much more about the launcher because I Nova'd it after about 3 hours. I saw no point in using the default launcher when it is so easy to replace. If you don't care for it, then I'd recommend you do the same.

Notifications and quick settings in different places: Notifications are shown by a swipe down from the top of the device, but the quick settings shade launches with a swipe up from the bottom. It's actually kinda nice not having to reach thethe top of the massive screen, I just would have preferred that both settings and notifications be accessible in the same screen.

Can't change quick settings: On the quick settings page is a button you can hit to make a fake call to yourself. Hit it and 15 seconds later your phone rings. You can even answer it to hear a recorded voice. It's really bizarre, but I guess it could be useful. If it's a feature you know you'd never use, too bad, you can't edit which settings appear on the shade or their arrangement.

What I like.

Scheduled on and off times: You can schedule a recurring time for the BLU XL to power off and back on. I can't recall seeing this feature on any other Android devices I haven owned. In fact the last phone I had that sported this feature was the Blackberry Curve 8900. There's no do not disturb mode, but this more or less works the same way.

Suspend button: The suspend button is a movable translucent toggle that floats at the edge of the screen. When pressed, the circle expands with shortcuts to a few actions. There's a home button, a back button, a menu button, and most interestingly, a pinch button. When you press the pinch button the screen shrinks down to about 4 inches making one hand operation easier. With only a little over half the screen illuminated, I'd also assume that using this mode would conserve battery life. The suspend button is optional, it can be deactivated.

Dismiss all button: At the bottom of the page in the recent apps tab is a button that will close all apps that are currently running which is handy to free up RAM or to just clean up your recent apps. It's a feature I miss on my Nexus 6P. Sure, other companies have this feature, but it's one I was happy to see included.

Performance

There may be some quirks in BLU's software, but at least it is stable. I can only recall 2-3 occasions in my time with the phone have I seen an app force close, which is impressive considering Hangouts force closes on my 6P at least once a day.

The XL is also a pretty snappy device. Apps may open a touch slower on it than the 6P, but the difference is barely noticeable. I didn't benchmark it, because I think benchmarks are silly (they have never impacted my decision to buy a device), but I imagine its scores are similar to the Vivo 5 since they both have the same processor and 3GB of RAM.

I didn't experience any appreciable delays when switching between apps and the XL plays games like Hearthstone and Riptide smoothly. The phone hardly heats up at all when running an intense application. In fact, I can't recall it ever being hot, and it takes a lot of stress to make it warm up at all.

There are a fair amount of pre-installed apps on the XL. They are mostly Google apps, along with a few Amazon apps, and some other odds and ends like a picture gallery, note taking app, and some theme/customization apps. A few can be deleted by the user and with 64GB of built-in storage and a MicroSD card slot capable that can handle an additional 32GB (I don't know why only 32GB, that's pretty low), you really won't have to worry about bloatware filling your phone's storage.

Battery Life

While the screen and build quality are both very good on the XL, the main selling point, in my opinion, is its remarkable endurance. This is, by far, the best battery life I have ever had on any Android phone I've used, and I don't say that lightly. The gargantuan 5,020 mAh battery paired with the power efficient AMOLED screen and efficient, if perhaps a bit under-powered, processor combine to create absolutely epic stamina.

I didn't run any specific battery run down tests, but let me tell you in real world terms how excellent the battery life is on the XL. I am an extremely heavy phone user, with 3-4 hours of screen-on time a day. The only Android phone I have ever owned that could make it through an entire day without having to recharge is the Sony Z3.

On a typical day I hit 15 percent battery on my Nexus 6P by about 5pm, about 10 hours after taking it off the charger. The BLU Energy XL would routinely last over four times as long, going an entire day, night and well into the evening the next day. BLU's marketing material states that the phone can last three days. For a power user, maybe not, but for a light to moderate user I think that is a realistic expectation.

Camera

The camera on the BLU Energy XL is ok, but not great. Two years ago I probably would have thought it was pretty good, but cameras in Android flagships have really improved over the last couple generations of devices and it takes a lot to impress me anymore.

I took some pictures with both the 6P and XL for comparison. The first image in each pairing was taken on the Energy XL, the second on the Nexus 6P.

As you can see, colors are a bit more muted and much cooler on the XL. Zooming in on the images also reveals that the images are not as sharp, blurring fine details. In adequate lighting the photos are ok, but in moderate to low light (the last 2 images were taken in low and moderate light, respectively) the camera struggles.

Video capture is not great on the XL. Videos have a fair amount of noise and distortion. Light changes cause jagged steps in brightness correction and rapid motion of the subject or camera can cause dropped frames. The phone is also not able to shoot in 4K or able to capture slow motion video, which is a bummer if you use those features.

With some touch up in Snapseed the phone is capable of producing some decent looking photos in ideal conditions, but I wouldn't say that the camera is a marquee feature of the XL.

With a little color and brightness correction the XL is capable of producing a good picture.

Conclusion

For $300, the Energy XL is a lot of phone. With double the storage of most flagships, a gorgeous screen, and incredible battery life, there are quite a few things that make this phone worthy of your consideration. I wish there weren't as many missteps, like the outdated OS, missing NFC, and mediocre camera performance, but I think the pros will still outweigh the cons for many Android users.

The bottom line is that no phone is any good once the battery dies. If longevity and a massive screen are your biggest concerns when shopping for a device, and you can overlook its quirks, then add this big boy to your list of phones to consider. It's available for purchase now at Amazon in gold and silver for $300. Questions? You know where they go.

Comments

It's really weird they omitted Band 17, which is AT&T's main LTE frequency. You might get LTE in some areas on Bands 2 or 4, but Band 17 is used the most.

Randroid

They omitted band 12, not 17. Omitting band 12 is actually fairly common. Sucks for T-Mobile customers (or Fi customers who can use T-Mobile towers) but it's not uncommon practice.

ProductFRED

They did omit Band 17. It has Bands 2/4/7 (1900/1700+2100/2600). AT&T's main band is Band 17, which is 700 MHz Lower B.

DennyTheDreamer

Band 17 (700mhz BC) is a subset of Band 12 (700mhz ABC). So yes, they did omit At&t band 17.

Daniel Marcus

I didn't experience any appreciable delays when switching between apps and the XL plays games like Hearthstone and Riptide smoothly. The phone hardly heats up at all when running an intense application. In fact, I can't recall it ever being hot, and it takes a lot of stress to make it warm up at all.

This right here is why I think MediaTek doesn't deserve so much dismissal. Even with the latest processors, Qualcomm is still struggling to balance battery life and performance, often leading to some pretty warm phones that have to resort to throttling to keep from getting too hot. I don't need my phone to be the fastest in the world, but I want it to run cool, idle well, and be snappy enough when I need it. For that, MediaTek is really doing a great job, and I hope they keep it up.

xphyle

I think most people complain about MediaTek because most of their devices have no ROM scene activity.

Vizair

I really like that feature of MediaTek embedded phones where they don't update it and it stays on already outdated OS. I also enjoy not having custom ROMs on my MediaTek phones because my phone is obsolete on release.
But on a serious note, these aren't bad processors. You wouldn't see MediaTek getting a big share in the smartphone market if they didn't undercut Qualcomm.

Jeff Beck

Trolololololol. That's me chuckling at your funny trolling.

Yeah, if you are a ROM tinkerer, Mediatek is not going to get it done.

It'll work fine for people who don't give a crap what version of Android they are running, which, unfortunately, excludes most of our readers.

Vizair

I would make a point about the lack of security updates but it may be in naught. These people don't download apps from shady sources since it's too difficult and neither do power users, since they know they're shady.

AsterMK

My Mediatek device has the June security patch and got most security patches before even Nexus devices or the BlackBerey Priv.

Vizair

That device being...?

AsterMK

The Redmi Note 2. Obviously smaller OEMs that use Mediatek won't be able to push security patches but to say Mediatek gets in the way of security patches in any way is wrong.

Vizair

Fair point.

AsterMK

The custom ROM scene exists sometimes. The Redmi Note 2 has some ROMs, for example, but not that many.

Yeah even BLU's original Studio Energy has a lot (also Android One anybody?) so it's not that MediaTek lacks ROMs as the same thing happens with other chips.

The issue is ROMs will only exist if enough people own the device AND a dev is willing to make ROMs for it and sadly it never happens for low cost devices no matter how popular the brand is or what chip (there's plenty of Samsung's with this issue also)

Slowpoke

And can we talk about that amazing piece of software that is MediaTek's SPFlash?

Daniel Marcus

Actually, their firmware tool is one of the better ones. Queue up the file, turn off the phone, plug it in, let it go. I've had less trouble flashing MTK devices than almost anything else. Really, only Moto and Nexus devices are easier, IMO.

Slowpoke

I'd rather use plain old and trusty Fastboot. I've trying to revive a bricked tablet, but SP Flash keeps throwing errors.

xphyle

That this phone DIDN'T launch with Marshmallow is UNFORGIVEABLE. Everyone knows BLU never updates their phones despite what they promise.

Correction: They don't rebrand devices, all are designed and made by them BUT they have an agreement with other companies to share factories, parts, etc to reduce the costs as it's many companies buying in bulk for all their own phones.

Oh and those other companies are Indian mostly.

Heiro78

is that how it is? Cuz i had read before that this phone is just a rebranded Gionee M5 Plus. I have a Blu studio one plus and love it, I choose it over the Honor 5X simply because i wanted to support american companies a bit more. But finding out they rebranded a phone made me dislike Blu. I know they are made in china/ overseas but atleast the design being in america was a positive for me.

Anon

he is describing rebranding in a fancy way. i took this from another site as an example.

Okay yes they have made some which are rebranded outright but my point was Blu has been moving away from that to not be a flat out rebranding with "small tweaks" like logo, color, etc. to different case types while still sharing components, in some cases mixing and matching to be a completely different phone.

Anon

oh, and you are right for this phone too. it is a rebranded Gionee M5 Plus. just look at the picture below

I personally use Android Pay just about every day to pay for lunch, which is why I was so hopeful that Wear 2.0 to support NFC payments.

tigerberry

Mobile payment is not a thing where I live and it's not likely to become a thing in the near future. My previous phone had NFC and I used it exactly once. I can live without NFC.

Ra1nb0wD4sh DE

I even regularly use NFC on my Sony NWZ-A15 to pair it with Bluetooth speakers.
It's very convenient.
¯_(ツ)_/¯

(NWZ used NFC on BT Box - It was super effective)

Adrian

re: The Bad:

It's a $300 phone. You're expecting BMW features at Yugo prices. Corners are going to be cut SOMEWHERE to make this price point. I doubt most people buying a phone, especially because it's cheaper than Samsung, HTC, etc, are going to care much about rapid charging standards. They're going to plug it in at night just like everyone else. Because it's got a giant battery, they're less likely to even NEED rapid charging. It makes sense.

As for NFC, I have it on my phone. I've used it.. once. If adding it jacks up the price by $50 or more, to many people it just won't be worth it. Not everyone looking for an android phone is going to be an enthusiast like us. It looks like a damn good phone for its target audience.

Jeff Beck

Which is my conclusion. I'm very impressed for 300 bucks. That being said, an NFC reader would not have broken the budget here.

Thanks for the comment!

Adrian

Fair enough. I think as far as bullet points for joe and jane average shopper, NFC isn't going to sway someone to buy one over something else as much as heaps of memory and storage does.

I get your point though. I have no idea how much NFC or patent use would jack up the price.

AsterMK

Didn't expect a Yugo reference.

But in Yugo's defense, they actually seem to be pretty reliable for the price they were sold at, and they remain very common where I live, which is understandable for an ex-Yu country.

Adrian

More in reference to features rather than quality. I still see them on the road here too from time to time. They last.

Marty

No NFC. I stopped reading at that point. Not interested.

Frylock86

Ewww with that camera I will never buy it. Still photos and videos are still the most important feature after the display!

Manol Chalakov

Hm is it just me or it's becoming a trend now that we see more and more BLU reviews on AP . . . I feel there is some feelings around this relationship :D

Jeff Beck

They make a lot of phones and send them to us for review. Like every other phone manufacturer. If they were paying us to write them you'd think we'd be less critical.

Manol Chalakov

There is no bad advertisement(except if its from One Plus :D) .I meant that they are appearing more often then other manufacturers . Samsung makes even more phones ;)

Jeff Beck

Samsung doesn't send them all to us though.

Manol Chalakov

Love is in the air :D

Noneya busyiness

Isn't this just a rehash of an older article that was posted before ?
Should be listed as a paid endorsement.

Jim

I wouldn't be mad about no NFC. For mobile payments, it's been annoying to get it to work even half the time. So I've given up. I don't use tags all over the place either.

Another proof that nobody gives a fuck for NFC and mobile payment. Sorry folks on Android forum in the US, but really, nobody cares. It's so much easier to just tap my credit card anyway than using my phone.

[A]dri[A]n

Mobile payments is gonna be one of those thing's that just never really catches on because let's be honest, it's stupid and pointless.

Max Johnson

This seems like an almost perfect media consumption phone for me except the camera is lackluster.

ethd

I love my Vivo 5, and go back and forth between it and my LG G3. I wouldn't go back and forth if it wasn't for the NFC.

Honestly, if it wasn't for the lack of NFC, I'd pick this up. Yeah, it runs Lollipop, but I don't think I've found more stable builds of Android than Gionee's anywhere. (And the Energy XL is a Gionee phone, that's about as Amigo OS as you can get)

digiblur

Ouch, only LTE 2/4/7? That's not a even a phone to be used in the US. What country is this designed for?

Kayleigh| Keywork vM

Band 4 is T-mobile's primary band IIRC, with Band 12 being their band for extended service range, which I will admit is a huge blow not to have. But at least it will still work. Although if you want a phone with the same performance, full U.S. LTE coverage, and Android marshmallow at the trade off of half an inch of display and the huge battery, for about $50 less the Blu Vivo 5R is probably the best bet

jeffhesser

Can you comment on if they have fixed their issue with podcast apps? I have a Blu Studio Energy 2 and after some research came to discover that all Blu phones have an issue with their built in audio player which causes it to never resume podcasts correctly. If they are paused for more than a few minutes it will start close to the beginning when resumed. Maybe this was a RAM issue or an issue with the way they aggressively suspend apps but I'd love to know if it has been resolved.

sensorsweep

Jeff, i've had good luck with Podcast Addict , and their advanced player settings (http://imgur.com/a/rKWdK). i just got this phone yesterday as a replacement for my Pure XL with a faulty micro USB port - so far so good with the Energy playing podcasts. I had far fewer issues using Podcast Addict on the Pure compared with other podcast apps - maybe occasional random pausing? (RAM?) but at least it knew where to resume.

i remember Pocket Casts being a complete disappointment

Zack Kibler

"On the quick settings page is a button you can hit to make a fake call to yourself." Lol sounds like the devs have a sense of humor.

Also, a couple of the quirky software features are iOS features, which is probably why BLU did it that way. All apps piled on several home screens and notifications at the top and quick settings at the bottom are all iOS features. Strange, yes, but not inexplicable.